Increase in Lapwing

I did the WeBS count this morning since the high tide was two hours before sunrise on Sunday. Lapwing numbers have gone way up from last weeks maximum count of 113 to an impressive 929 this morning. They were very easily spooked (as Lapwing are) for the whole count, but I manage to quickly get through them without any major movements.

Other counts include; 1225 Dunlin, 500 Black-tailed Godwit, 350 Curlew, three Bar-tailed Godwit, 391 Knot, 11 Greenshank, a Spotted Redshank, a Grey Plover, 45 Redshank and eight Snipe.

Duck numbers from the reserve included 221 Pintail, 206 Wigeon, 76 Tufted Duck, 40 Shoveler, 126 Gadwall, two Pochard and a disappointing count of only 23 Teal.

Wigeon

A Red Kite (not that common here despite being in Wales) flew over on Tuesday while we were cutting down some large trees which were deemed unsafe by someone who came in and did a tree survey a few weeks ago.

Other work carried out over the past couple of weeks has included mostly cutting trees down and strimming and clearing areas of scrub. We've put up quite a few bird feeders now the cold weather has set in, and these are already being visited by large numbers of finches and tits.

Colour-ringed Tufted Duck!

Yesterday I went for a walk along Llanelli beach and up to Sandy Water Park. A Chiffchaff landed in a bush breifly, called once, and then flew high to the east. On the lake were a single Pochard, c.16 Shoveler and c.10 Tufted Duck. Some of the Tufted Duck were taking advantage of the almost constant feeding by members of the public that takes place in the south east corner. While scanning over them, I noticed that one had a pale yellow ring on its right leg, and when it turned I could see that it had an orange ring on the left. The colours were quite hard to judge through the water and the bird soon went behind cover. I came back today to have another look, and thankfully it was showing much better. On the left leg there was a metal ring under the orange which I hadn't noticed yesterday.

This bird was ringed at Radipole Lake in Dorset in 2007 in a study with the WWT. Twelve males were ringed that year, but even though I can make out the first five characters of the metal ring, it still isn't enough to narrow it down to an individual.

Most birds from this study seem to migrate to and from their breeding grounds in Siberia through the lower counties of England, so this bird is a little unusual in that respect. Perhaps it over shot its wintering grounds?

On Monday I saw a Bittern again as I was locking up the hides, and on Wednesday I picked up a Merlin perched up over the saltmarsh, the first I've seen here. There were good numbers of waders roosting on the Saline Lagoon with 890 Dunlin, 640 Knot, 222 Curlew, 474 Black-tailed Godwit, 17 Greenshank and three Spotted Redshank. Four Water Rail were also showing nicely from the hide.

On Thursday, we helped out catching some of the collection birds to update the records. We caught all the Red-crested Pochards and Philippine Ducks bar one which wouldn't come out of cover. In the previous week we caught all but one of the Buffleheads, despite spending an hour with five people in the pond armed with nets after just the one bird! It kept diving through the line we formed from one side to the other, and never seemed to tire.

Otter, Mink and Whimbrel

With the recent news of bird flu reaching the UK, we've all been asked to keep an extra special look out for any dead birds on the reserve. Every week we conduct a "patrol" looking for dead birds with the aim of being able to collect the bodies and take swabs. The swabs will be sent off to the lab to be analysed for any diseases, particularly avian botulism. This disease is spread through the consumption of infected maggots, so to minimize the risk we try to bury any dead mammals we find (quite a few so far - rats, rabbits and five moles!).

A few sunny spells in the middle of the week saw a few late insects on the wing - a Red Admiral on Tuesday, and a Common Darter on both Tuesday and Wednesday, with the one on Wednesday having the characteristic weak fluttery flight of a newly emerged teneral.

Common Darter

We have three mink rafts around the reserve which are basically floating platforms with an area of soft clay under a wooden tunnel for recording the footprints of any mammal in the area. We've been checking these every week since I've been working here, but for the first time yesterday I found the footprints of a mink!

Minks are obviously bad news for the local water vole population, so we put the traps out the same day in the hope that we'll catch it, but looking today, the traps were empty.

Today, we were out early doing salinity and depth readings at a number of test sites around the saline lagoon. These readings have been taken for about a year roughly once a fortnight, and we're still collecting data with the aim of leaning more about how the regular flooding from the estuary affects it. Hopefully this data may help to aid any future management strategies for the lagoon to ensure it is working at its full potential.

While we were out there we found numerous otter prints in the soft mud...

While doing a high tide bird count this evening the biggest surprise was a really late Whimbrel. Other counts include 20 Snipe, 119 Dunlin, three Spotted Redshank, 170 Wigeon, 182 Lapwing, 105 Black-tailed Godwit, 16 Greenshank and 39 Redshank.

Whimbrel

Golden Plovers and Black Redstart

As I was counting the Lapwing (124) on Tuesday, two Golden Plovers flew into my field of view low over the marsh and circled around a couple of times, gaining height, before heading off to the east. These are the first of this species that I've seen since being here, and looking back at records for the reserve, it seems like they are only ever seen in small numbers during the winter. The Great White Egret was also present on this morning, showing close in front of the hide.

The other highlight of the week was a Black Redstart that flew in and landed on a wall right in front of my front door as I was waiting to set off to work in the morning sun. Risking looking a bit weird to the neighbours, I pointed my camera to the roof tops and managed to get a few shots. The white wing patch means this bird is a first winter male.

Black Redstart

Later in the morning I saw a high flying flock of Black-headed Gulls. I've never seen BHGs flying in such an obvious V-formation before.

Black-headed Gulls

The week's work was mainly made up of odd jobs, but on Friday we did some coppicing and pollarding either side of a stretch of path that's used for bird ringing in the spring and summer as part of the Constant Effort Scheme. This will hopefully create a lower denser area of branches no higher than the nets, so that we'll catch more birds. I can't wait to start doing some ringing!

Bittern on WeBS count

This morning I did what was probably the best WeBS count I've ever done. I got to the British Steel hide just as the sun was rising. The tide was pretty high breaking over the banks of the saline lagoon and flooding the roost islands. I managed good counts of all birds except for Knot with only 65 logged. Hopefully the other 200+ will have been picked up by another counter on the estuary!

Other totals include five Spotted Redshank, 22 Greenshank, 300 Redshank, 658 Black-tailed Godwit, one Bar-tailed Godwit, 415 Curlew, 66 Dunlin, 95 Lapwing, 185 Wigeon and 23 Teal. Scanning across the flooded saltmarsh, I came across the Great White Egret standing more than twice the height of the nearby Little Egrets.

On to the other side of the reserve, the Millennium Wetlands. I started off at the Peter Scott hide where just as I'd finished counting, the first Bittern of the winter flew up from close to the channel we cleared out earlier this week and flew away from me over the Deep Lake. Although, brief, I got a really good view of this amazing species, but no photo because my camera was in my bag.
Other birds which I missed this morning were a Marsh Harrier (not the wing tagged bird), a Merlin and a Mandarin Duck.

Last fortnight

Sunset over the Burry Inlet.

The birding has been pretty slow over the last couple of weeks. I'd have thought that with all the strong winds coming up the estuary, we might have had a phalarope or two on the saline lagoon. Or with all the time I've been spending doing work around woodland, and being in almost constant presence of tit flocks I might have been lucky enough to find a yellow-browed warbler. But no, not even a firecrest!


Peak wader and wildfowl counts over the last two weeks have included 661 Black-tailed Godwit, 415 Curlew, 258 Knot, five Spotted Redshank, 351 Redshank, 29 Greenshank, 106 Lapwing, 19 Dunlin, two Grey Plover, five Snipe, 126 Wigeon, 104 Teal, 42 Tufted Duck, 53 Shoveler, 55 Pintail, 141 Gadwall, two Pochard, six Little Grebe and a Mediterranean Gull.

Over the last few weeks we've been doing a lot of work strimming and clearing away scrub from the path verges to increase the plant diversity and to prevent encroachment of bramble. I'm looking forward to the various orchids that we'll be seeing in the spring. We've put the cut vegetation to good use by using it to make reptile and amphibian habitats around the site. These include a base layer of logs to provide cavities for grass snakes to lay their eggs in, and a thick layer of the cut vegetation to provide insulation. We've also placed rubber mats and sheets of corrugated iron nearby for snakes to warm themselves, and logs have been leant up against the sides of the structure to give lizards a place to sun themselves.

Another job carried out earlier in the week was the clearance of a 60 metre long channel in front of the Peter Scott hide. This involved wearing chest waders and immersing ourselves up to our waists in thick silt and a tangle of reedmace roots, the reedmace being the main plant that we were pulling up.

Once the trees are cut down on this island it should look a lot better and perhaps attract a bittern in - I've got my fingers crossed!

I'll finish this post off with this lovely drinker moth catapillar that I found on Wednesday sunning itself on a leaf. This is a species of moth that overwinters as a larvae before pupating in the spring. I'm not sure if this one has come out of hibernation to feed, or whether it hasn't actually gone into hibernation yet, perhaps not surprising given the warm end to the year? Also in the area were three Chiffchaff; a good number for this time of year.

Drinker moth caterpillar

Port Eynon Seawatch

I had a seawatch this morning at Port Eynon, however, relying on my family for transport meant we arrived a 11:00 just as the wind was dieing down. I saw some nice birds though, with a Great Northern Diver close in being the best. Also seen were c.20 Mediterranean Gulls, two Sandwich Terns, a male Eider sat on the sea, eight Common Scoter, a distant skua sp. (pom/arctic) which was only on view for 10 seconds before landing on the sea, c.70 Kittiwake, c.80 Guillemots and c.20 Common Gulls.

Also nice to see were a minimum of eight Harbour Porpoise close in in the bay.

Harbour Porpoise

Great Northern Diver

Eider

Gower Holiday

I'm spending a long weekend on the Gower with my family at the moment, and it got off to a good start bird wise with a Siberian Chiffchaff just outside the holiday home! Nice pale underparts (especially the vent area) without any yellows or greens, quite a strong supercilium, browny grey upperparts, and black beak and legs. It even called for me.

Siberian Chiffchaff

I watched it for about five minutes before going back inside to get my camera to grab a few shots, none of which came out that good, but this ones the best. I didn't have much time either as my family were sat in the car waiting for me!

We went off to the Port Eynon on the coast where we found some amazing scenery...

On the roof tops of the village I found two female type Black Redstarts. Nice to see back!

Black Redstart

In the afternoon we went for a walk along a huge beach at Oxwich and up along the clifftops, from which there was a large raft of c.190 Common Scoter.

The flock with Devon in the background.

Can't pick out any velvets!

So, a good start!

'shanks

These three species were showing nicely together on the Lagoon this morning, however wader numbers in general were very limited due to the low high tide.

Redshank, Spotted Redshank and Greenshank

Later on in the day I had the rare opportunity of watching a fox hunting. It weaved through the long sedge and willow herb of the Western Scrapes until it was completely hidden. It then jumped up and pounced at something. I couldn't see if it was carrying anything in its mouth as it walked away, so not sure if it was successful.

Over the last couple of days we've been clearing juncus around the NRA scrapes to give a larger area for the Wigeon to graze when their numbers build up for the winter. I had a quick stomp over the area first, hoping to chuck up a few Snipe, however none were found.

Yesterday I saw my first Redwings of the Autumn. A flock of 13 flying over the Millennium Wetlands.

GWE up close

I found a Great White Egret this morning on the Lagoon while doing bird counts, possibly the same bird as the one a couple of week ago? It got chased off by a Grey Heron and relocated to the pool in front of the Powell hide where it showed down to 15 metres! I watched it for about an hour actively fishing. It must have caught well over 30 fish! Other birds included five Spotted Redshank and two Grey Plover.

Storm

On Thursday I managed to somehow cycle in to work without getting wet despite being surrounded by thunderstorms! The high tide of over eight metres and low pressure meant that the view from the British Steel hide looked like this...

Saltmarsh totally submerged and torrential rain on its way!

Most birds were on the lagoon but some were sheltering in the banks of the NRA scrapes. The Black-headed Gulls showed some interesting behavior, pointing their heads directly up into the rain. Not quite sure why they do this.

The westerly winds had driven some seabirds up into the estuary, but nothing that exciting in the way of Skuas or Petrels, however I was pleased to see the first returning Eider, with two flocks of 13 and 6 flying west. There were also 14 Sandwich Tern and four Brent Geese on the estuary.

I've taken on the WeBS counting for the reserve for the year, which surprisingly hadn't been counted for the last few years! Maximums from today and Thursday include four Spotted Redshank, 862 Black-tailed Godwit (big count), 390 Curlew, 70 Greenshank, 156 Redshank, 151 Knot, 54 Lapwing, 152 Wigeon, 125 Teal and 35 Pintail. At least 15 Water Rail were calling across the Millennium Wetlands.

Amongst the Curlew was a colour ringed individual. I'm struggling to find the project it belongs to right now, but I'll keep trying and update later.

Cow herding

I came in early this morning hoping to catch the end of the high tide, however it had already fallen quite a way and there were limited waders on the marsh. I recorded just 27 Black-tailed Godwit, ten Redshank and six Greenshank. A nice surprise in with 15 Lapwing was a juvenile male Ruff, the first for a few weeks now.

After lunch, we added the trees that we cut down the other day into a habitat hedge that we've been creating since the start of my placement. It will provide a place of shelter for wintering insects as well as hopefully hibernating mammals.

I know it doesn't look much in this photo, but its a good 15m long and 3m wide in some parts.

In the afternoon we had to herd the cows into the NRA area to ensure that they're away and safe from the high tides of 8m over the next few days. After a bit of stick waving, shouting, and enticing with a food bag, we locked all 33 of them into the area. They won't be here for much longer as the farmer will be taking them away for winter, so now's the time for a Cattle Egret!

While we were out on the marsh, I was able to add a flyover Spotted Redshank and a flushed Snipe to the bird list for the day.

A change in the weather

Last weekend I read another three new rings off Llanelli beach; two Mediterranean Gulls and a Black-headed Gull.

The Meds were from France (green 8M0) and Belgium (white E236), ringed in 2011 (pullus) and 2010 (as an adult) respectively. Fairly uninteresting histories, however white E236 made an appearance in Cornwall in 2011.

The Black-headed Gull (white E5KL) was ringed in Holland in 2010, and my recovery was the first away from its breeding area and the first out of the breeding season.

This shot has a real Mediterranean feel to it, looking over the estuary with the tip of Gower peninsular in the background.

It felt anything but Mediterranean this weekend with a blustery wind and rain showers. Yesterday, the Marsh Harrier was flying over the saltmarsh at the reserve early morning before flying high over to the other side of the estuary. During the rest of the day I checked the local gull flocks twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, but to no avail. I also had a good look this afternoon, but despite the promising conditions for something American, again, no luck. There were however c.120+ Common Gulls and c.30+ Mediterranean Gulls on the sand bar pictured above. A late afternoon visit to the reserve coincided with a Peregrine attack, with a Knot being the prey item of choice, so the view from the British Steel Hide was almost waderless, however there was a Spotted Redshank with the few remaining Redshank.

On the reserve the past week, we've been busy cutting down trees, mostly willow and alder, which have been obscuring the view of the Deep Lake from the Heron Hide. We have also strimmed and cleared the islands ready for roosting waders in the winter, and for breeding birds in the spring.

Snipe in the morning sun

A couple of weeks ago, with the help of another group of HSBC volunteers, we cleared a large island of vegetation in the Millennium Wetlands, including cutting a few narrow channels through the reed beds which will hopefully prove good for Bitterns when they return. The reeds around the edge of the island were cut down to stubble, and this morning, two Snipe were feeding around, and using it as cover. A nice start to the first day of October!

Snipe

The rest of the day was spent cutting trees down in front of the Heron hide which were partially blocking the view of the lake. Again, once the water levels are increased towards the winter, the small flooded channels should provide good Bittern habitat.

The only other wildlife excitement of the day was a Painted Lady on the centre path. When its wings were folded it was amazingly well camouflaged against the ground, and I needed to get down on my hands and knees just to located it. It seems like its been a poor year for the species in Britain. This was actually my first of the year!

Painted Lady

Great White Egret!

So, I'd just finished doing bird counts for the morning at the British Steel hide, and as I was about to leave, I heard the shout, "Great Egret!" I looked out over the marsh and sure enough, a Great White Egret was flying low over the water being chased by a Heron! It landed briefly in a ditch before flying off towards the saltmarsh the other side of the saline lagoon. This was my first Great White Egret that I've seen in Britain, so it was quite an exciting time for me. I just about managed to get some photos, however the light was poor, as were my composure levels, so they're not great.

Great White Egret

A juvenile Little Stint was present, as were two Curlew Sandpipers and three Spotted Redshank (there were four on Sunday). Other counts include 47 Greenshank, 222 Redshank, 203 Knot, 754 Black-tailed Godwit, four Bar-tailed Godwit and 93 Dunlin.

The rest of the day was spent clearing willow from the Swan's Nest Maze that we'd cut previously with help from a group of volunteers from HSBC.

Big swan eggs!

Hopefully it'll grow back nice and thick next year!

While we worked, we had company from some very lethargic Migrant Hawkers which amazingly I was able to pick up by their wings while they were still perched!

Check out the length of those anal appendages!

Note the yellow 'golf tee' on S2

Grey Plover and Goosander

Totals from the last couple of days include two Little Stint, three Curlew Sandpiper, three Spotted Redshank (2 ad. & 1 juv.), 67 Greenshank, 364 Redshank, 669 Black-tailed Godwit, eight Bar-tailed Godwit, 196 Knot, 111 Dunlin, 396 Curlew, and one each of Whimbrel, Water Rail, Snipe and Grey Plover, the latter species being the first I've seen since being here.

Grey Plover

Today there were two Sandwich Tern and a Common Tern fishing over the estuary, though always very distant! The Common Tern picked a series of small fish from the surface of the water and ate them in flight.

While scanning the estuary with my binoculars, I picked up a red head Goosander flying right towards me. It flew right over the hide and seemed to arc round to the east slightly.

A ringed Black-tailed Godwit has been present since 8th September. It was ringed in northern Iceland as a chick on 12th July this year.

Colour ringed Black-tailed Godwit

This Black-headed Gull has also been around for a while. It has a weird beak abnormality on the upper mandible. It's obviously still able to feed with it since it has made it to adulthood.

Black-headed Gull with beak abnormality

New Garganey

While doing rounds of the hides this morning I found a new in female type Garganey, the first for about three weeks. It was feeding on the western side of the lagoon and did a very good job of submerging its head just as I pressed the camera shutter. So good that out of the 30+ photos I took, only two had its head in!

Garganey

Also on the Lagoon were 94 Pintail.

Pintail

I've received news back on the five ringed Mediterranean Gulls I read two weeks ago. Two ringed in France, two in Belgium and one in Holland.

The most interesting one is white 3P17 from Belgium. It was ringed in 2002 as a chick making it an impressive 12 years old. The oldest Med Gull recorded is 15, so not far off! This bird seems to have spent its late summers/autumns in the mid South Wales area and returned Belgium and Germany in the winter and breeding period for most of its years.

White 31A7 was ringed in northern Holland in 2009 aged three. It was seen the next year eating Black-headed Gull eggs (!) at a colony also in northern Holland, and the following summer it was seen for the first time at Llanelli before flying down to my home county of Devon where it was picked up on the Axe Estuary during January 2012.

Still a few dragonflies on the wing including some Southern Hawkers, one of which perched up nicely for me the other day.

Southern Hawker